A Layman's Guide to the Controversial CISPA

Bangalore: After the highly controversial Anti-Piracy Act SOPA, the US House of Representatives has proposed another divisive plan by passing the Cyber-security Information Sharing Act, CISPA. Adding to the common man’s ordeal about internet insecurity, the act would enable Federal agencies and Internet Companies to share all sort of information about any user under the radar of suspicion of a cyber attack.

The House assures that the rights given to the Federal agencies under the act would be used only under extreme conditions like an evident cyber-attack, but there are certain factors of CISPA that every internet user must know about, as it infringes their right to privacy.

These are certain facets of the act that would draw the attention of every civilian who loves his/her own private space, even on the internet.

1. Sharing or Spying?

Depending on the range of information that will be availed to the agencies by the internet companies decides whether the whole act is a mere security measure or a weapon of constant vigilance. Talking about accessing information, the claws of the federal agencies can go way deep. Public Liberty organizations like Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) say that the breadth of access to information provided to the government via CISPA is enormous and bears no definitive boundaries, reported Business Insider. A critic of the act Rep. Jared Polis argues, “The bill would waive every single privacy law ever enacted in the name of cyber-security.”